Falling over

To keep old people from falling down so much, says Dr Frederick R Carrick, play them songs sung by someone special. But Dr Carrick cautions that this is a musical power distinct from the mundane sort that shatters glass or eardrums or a listener's complacency.

So rare is this potency that only one singer - 25-year-old French pop star Nolwenn Leroy - is known to possess it.

Dr Carrick conducted three clinical trials to prove it. He registered these experiments with the US National Institutes of Health (documentation is available to the general public at http://clinicaltrials.gov). One is called Fall Prevention in a Geriatric Nursing Home Setting Using the Music of Nolwenn Leroy. Another is Study of the Effect of the Music of Nolwenn Leroy in Fall Prevention Strategies in Texas Nursing Homes. The results are still mostly under wraps, but the researchers are dropping hints.

"The use of music in neurological applications is not new," Dr Carrick and his colleagues explain in a press release. "What is new is that the music of Nolwenn Leroy appears to have a different effect on brain based modulation of gait and stance than other music tested to date ... [This phenomenon is] referred to as the Nolwenn Effect ... We have other researchers studying the effect of Nolwenn Leroy's music in a variety of nursing homes in the USA, Holland, UK, Australia, Japan and Korea."

The researchers did publish a report in a sort of medical journal, the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Called Posturographic Changes Associated with Music Listening, it says: "The music of Nolwenn Leroy was found to be significantly superior to other music tested." The Nolwenn Leroy songs were 14 Février and Suivre une Étoile. The other music was an unspecified song by Mozart (the report does not say whether it was sung, and if so by whom) and unspecified songs sung by six unnamed persons.

Frederick R Carrick boasts many degrees and affiliations. He is a PhD and an FACCN (which seems to be short for Fellow of the American Chiropractic College of Nutrition). He founded the Carrick Institute for Graduate Studies, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He is Professor Emeritus of Neurology at Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas, Texas, and Distinguished Post Graduate Professor of Clinical Neurology at Logan College of Chiropractic, near St. Louis, Missouri. None of these are especially well known, but all of them exist.

Currently, no one in the UK is specifically licensed to dispense Nolwenn Leroy's voice for medical purposes. It is not sanctioned by the NHS.

That could soon change. A few months ago, the Carrick Institute announced an agreement in which it will fund PhD degrees to be granted by the Faculty of Health at Leeds Metropolitan University. In the meantime, Nolwenn Leroy's voice can be purchased, on the sly if necessary, from music stores.

· (Thanks to Julien Rosta for bringing this to my attention.) Mark Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel Prize